What Now? pt. 2

I have a tendency to go in circles especially when I'm struggling with something! This time it's faith... how do we express it? How do we define it? Do we define it? Is it something we're absolutely sure about? Or is there room for doubts? There I go again! Maybe the only way out of this downward spiral or bottomless pit or any other metaphor you can come up with that isn't good, is for me to look at Jesus, his example, his life.


As with all the things Jesus teaches us, and I think the apostles have come to this conclusion too, is that inevitably all of Jesus' teachings are undeniably active. The Hebrew 'idea' or better yet the Hebrew way of knowing truth is to express it. For something to be true, it is expressed, it's lived, truth has meat and bones in the Hebrai worldview. So, for Jesus and the people in his time, the line between (their idealogical musings with) the doctrine of faith and faith itself does not exist, atleast not for Jesus and those who walked with him in the 1st Century. Might it be fair to conclude that nowhere in Jesus' teaching we'll find an exact doctrine of 'faith'? Perhaps we would, and I'm just putting this out there, be better off looking for a praxis of faith? A way to live faith out, instead of keeping it to the amount of 'will' I can conjure up in a trying time?


So the next best question to ask, i think, is: What does faith look like? At times it can appear as the calculated brush strokes of an accomplished artist, or like your first attempt at learning a new dance and then there are other times when it's just plain messy, and even ugly, undefined and out of control.


Can faith really be so many things? All at once, for different people or even the same person? Or do we need a strict definition or atleast a biblical-hermenuetic of the scriptures that pertain to the notion of faith in the believer?! Another formula perhaps, will this help? I don't know, can I just get that off my chest, I really don't know! Perhaps the Gospels will give us a better insight...yes we'll look to Jesus!

Next time...

AndyC

What now?

Things have been really frustrating lately. Ever feel like things are just not adding up? Like everything, ok some things, don't make sense anymore. Yeah? Well, I don't know what to make of church, God and even Jesus sometimes. More recently, these feelings, these thoughts have come up more often than I'd like to admit to. Like this feeling or thought of me having to have it together in order to fully follow Jesus, to fully be in awe of God. To fully be Christian.


What do you do when the Jesus you follow isn't the one portrayed by mainstream, or more accurately the majority, of Christianity? What then? What now? Do you just throw in the towel? Do you conclude that, I don't know, you might not have an accurate or right picture of God? Would it be possible to feel like you're not following the Jesus of the Bible, because you're not too sure? Does struggling with unbelief constitute that you don't believe? What do you say? What do you do? What do you conclude?


Is this the way of Jesus? To have fool-proof answers to everything? To be so sure that you're right and that everyone else is wrong? That your picture of God is the right one. That you have it all together. Is this right? Is it wrong? Is it faithful to scripture?


Me asking these questions, is it faithful to scripture? Does believing in Jesus allow me to have doubts when, I don't know, when I don't feel like I have it all together? When I don't feel or think that following Jesus is worth it, worth the struggle, worth the fight? I have these thoughts, I have these feelings, I go through those times.

One things for sure, if I stay in this place, having these thoughts, stuck in this rut, with these feelings then it won't be long before... before I actually throw in the towel. So what now? Where to from here? What do we, what do I, conclude?

Maybe it's worth asking what Jesus has to say or teach about this? About living with your doubts, fears and imcompetencies... What do you think he'll say? How will he react?

So I've asked these questions...what now?

AndyC

Would you like to throw the first stone?

There is a story in John, chapter 8, which has intrigued me lately. It's that one where the Religious leaders bring the woman that has just committed adultery to Jesus, and I just love Jesus' response! "The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone."

But just before Jesus’ unarming response it’s interesting to note that the “Religious teachers” tried to justify the stoning by saying, “Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” By the way, while all this is happening Jesus is drawing in the sand. So, after Jesus’ response they all start walking off, one by one. Who was left to condemn her? No one. “Neither do I”, says Jesus, "Go on your way. From now on, don't sin."

So many times we "Christians" want to throw the first stone, we want to condemn and bring judgement upon those “unrighteous ones”. But how many of us haven't sinned? How many of us then have the right to bring judgement upon them? Maybe we have to look at ourselves first? Maybe the Church needs to sort out its own sin, before we go condemning people about theirs! Does Matthew 7 ring a bell? "Don't look at the splinter in your brother's eye, when you have a log in your own eye".

So my question is, why point out people’s personal issues when there are bigger things to worry about like the gap between the rich and the poor, consumerism, climate change or the Aids crisis in Africa?

Would you still like to throw the first stone?

Andy Crowe